Mayoral candidates Klein, Vogiatzakis continue to snipe over inducement allegations

Winnipeg mayoral candidate Mike Vogiatzakis told reporters Monday he will contact the city clerk to report his allegation that rival Kevin Klein offered him a job to drop out of the race.

Vogiatzakis and Klein both doubled down a day after accusing each other of offering the other a position at city hall, if they were victorious in the Oct. 28 election, in exchange for a withdrawal.

“Do I want to get him charged? Not really. I don’t want to destroy anybody’s life,” Vogiatzakis told reporters.

“Kevin’s a good guy. I thought he was a friend of mine, but he’s not. Kevin uses leverage to get ahead, and he tried to use me as leverage.”

Provincial legislation prohibits anyone from offering a bribe or inducement in an election. Vogiatzakis, a funeral director, and Klein denied the allegations, and accused each other of lying.

“He tried to use me as leverage.”

Klein said he’d prefer to focus on issues such as crime and transit instead of personal attacks.

“I’m not going to get into a grade school, recess type of politics,” he told reporters prior to a campaign announcement.

Klein, president and CEO of the company that publishes the Winnipeg Sun, was also on the defensive over a Sunday column written by a “guest” columnist who questioned the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools, less than a week after the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The headline stated: “Grave misdirection: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Klein said he was “appalled” by the column, but he’s not involved in the newspaper’s operations during the campaign. The Southern Chiefs’ Organization condemned the column, and questioned whether Klein understands residential school history and the ongoing responsibilities of reconciliation.

“If I had been in charge … I would not have approved that column,” Klein said at a campaign event. “I apologize to the Southern Chiefs’ Organization or any member of the community that was offended by that.”

“I’m not going to get into a grade school, recess type of politics.”

A column by Klein’s wife, Heather, who is editor-in-chief of the Sun, was later published with the headline, “Disagreement is not denial,” in response to accusations of residential school denialism in the original column.

“I would have preferred to see a simple apology go in the paper,” Klein said.

SCO Grand Chief Jerry Daniels said the original column’s messaging is “completely untrue.”

“(I’m) a little horrified at the idea that we still have to reiterate what had occurred in this country,” he said of residential schools. “I think we’ve come a long way through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and all the testimony of the thousands of survivors. It’s important that people challenge these kinds of narratives any time they occur.”

Daniels said it’s up to individual residential school survivors to decide if they accept Klein’s apology.

“I think it’s challenging for him to say on one hand he’s not responsible, but he’s sorry for what occurred. I just think those two are mutually exclusive,” Daniels said.

Klein said he was attempting to speak to Daniels as of Monday morning so the grand chief “understands this was not me.” Klein said the Sun published a Sept. 28 column by former MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette that stated “we need to treat residential school issues more seriously.”

The businessman said he will divest himself “100 per cent of the Winnipeg Sun” if he becomes mayor.

“Any talk of, in any way, anyone downplaying the devastating, lasting impacts of residential schools, it’s very disappointing and there’s really no place for it,” incumbent candidate Scott Gillingham said at a campaign event.

He said allegations of inducement by other candidates are “very serious.”

Mayoral candidate Tracey Drexler accused the Sun of weaponizing “division against Indigenous families and survivors.”

Vogiatzakis, meanwhile, claimed a member of Klein’s team phoned him Aug. 31 — a day before Klein publicly confirmed he would enter the race — asking him to withdraw in exchange for a position on the Winnipeg Police Board.

Vogiatzakis said he declined the offer while recording the call from Tim Diack, a police officer and 2018 mayoral candidate. He said he was unable to find the audio recording on his cellphone after reporters asked to listen to it.

Diack, who could not be reached for comment, denied the allegation to CBC Manitoba. Klein said Diack is not a member of his campaign team.

“Kevin even reached out to me at the debate, too, and said, ‘Come on, Mike,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not dropping out, Kevin,’” Vogiatzakis said.

Klein countered, alleging Vogiatzakis’ campaign director, Todd Dube, approached his staff at the Sept. 14 transit debate to offer him a position in the mayor’s office if he stepped aside.

Klein said he wasn’t involved in the conversation, and his team declined the offer.

“I understand Mike’s gone through some terrible things with the very violent death of his brother, and I feel great pain for him,” Klein said.

“My mother was murdered. I understand that pain. Sometimes we hold things in and then we explode. I did that too before I seeked (sic) help and dealt with it.”

Vogiatzakis’ brother, Kyriakos, was fatally assaulted outside the Cork & Flame restaurant, which he owned, in 2024. Klein’s mother was killed by her husband in 1991.

Dube said he told Klein before the Sept. 14 debate began that Vogiatzakis would not withdraw.

“I said, ‘However, if at any point that you leave the race, Mike would have a place for you at his table.’ We were inviting him in kind of a co-operative way,” Dube said.

“If Kevin took that at the transit debate as a deal, that if he dropped out tomorrow that he would get a job from Mike, then that’s just his misunderstanding. I was simply responding to his prior offer, which he initiated.”

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Klein said he is the victim of a smear campaign days after Vogiatzakis was criticized because his primary residence is outside Winnipeg.

Klein, a former police board chair when he was a city councillor, said Vogiatzakis has a criminal record and therefore cannot hold the same position. Vogiatzakis’ disclosure statement lists assault and contempt of court convictions from the late 1980s.

Vogiatzakis said the assault occurred when he grabbed a young hockey player and threw him against a wall while protecting an older fellow coach, and the contempt of court occurred when he “said some things I probably shouldn’t have said” in front of a judge who oversaw the assault case.

— With files from Matthew Frank

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca

Chris Kitching
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As a general assignment reporter, Chris covers a little bit of everything for the Free Press.

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Joyanne Pursaga
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Born and raised in Winnipeg, Joyanne loves to tell the stories of this city, especially when politics is involved. Joyanne became the city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press in early 2020.

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